94 PROBLEMS IN WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



Research in the breeding and management of reindeer, 

 caribou, and musk-oxen in Alaska is carried on through a 

 field station at the Territorial Agricultural College and 

 School of Mines and at various scattered field stations. The 

 chief problem in this field is to increase the weight of the 

 reindeer so as to make them more valuable commercially. 

 Considerable success has been achieved in solving the prob- 

 lem through cross breeding of reindeer and caribou. 



The McSweeney-McNary Act of 1928 28 authorized the 

 Secretary of Agriculture to conduct an investigation to de- 

 termine the best methods of managing the national forests. 

 As it would be supposed, most of the work undertaken in 

 accordance with the provisions of the Act is being carried 

 on by the Forest Service itself, but the Biological Survey 

 was asked to cooperate in the study of the relation of wild 

 life to forestry. The major portion of that study is being 

 carried on by the Division of Biological Investigations. To 

 insure unity of effort between the Forest Service and the 

 Survey, regional conferences have been held from time to 

 time, a good example of which would be the conference 

 held at the Intermountain Forest and Range Experimental 

 Station, Ephraim, Utah in August 1931. At this confer- 

 ence the men of both services engaged in this study in the 

 mountain states met and talked over their common problems. 



The title of the Division, Biological Investigations, is the 

 best summary of its work in general. Not only does it per- 

 form biological work for the other divisions of the Bureau 

 but frequently its personnel is temporarily assigned to aid 

 state conservation departments that are in need of such 

 experts. 29 Quarterly reports are submitted by each major 



28 45 stat. L. 699. 



219 An example is found in the request of the Virginia Department of 

 Conservation for aid in an investigation of deer and fur-bearing animals 

 in the lowlands of the state made during the latter part of December 1931. 



